Once you learn these 7 harsh realities of life, you’ll be much stronger

If you were hoping for the same fluffy and friendly life advice about life that you get in other places, think again.

These seven truths may be hard to hear, but they are guaranteed to help you sort your crap out and get your life together.

1) It’s not anyone else’s job to fix you, so fix yourself.

Have something missing? Find it. Feeling miserable? Get out there and find something that makes you happy.

Stop waiting for that lottery win or that knight in shining armour to come and rescue you. You are not in distress, figure out what you want and then get out in the world and grab it with both hands.

2) Nothing is perfect.

It’s not the right time to have children.

It’s too risky to start my own business.

I can’t start dating until I’ve lost more weight.

Suck it up buttercup! If you keep waiting for the right time, the right place or the right situation, all you’ll find is yourself waiting on your deathbed with a list of regrets about things you never did.

The right time is now, so get out there and get what you want.

3) You are probably definitely going to fail.

“The only way to avoid criticism is to do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.” (Aristotle)

Aristotle may be some old dude that’s been dead longer than you’ve been alive, but that doesn’t mean he’s not right about this. Failure is normal, it’s natural and everyone does it.

You will make a fool of yourself.

You will make terrible decisions.

You’ll kiss the wrong person.

You’ll make mistakes and regret them.

That’s fine, but when you fall off that horse (or kiss that frog), dust yourself off and get straight back up again. Don’t stop living just because you didn’t get it right the first time.

4) You can’t change the past.

I know, this one is tough – but no matter how hard you try the past can never be re-written.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.” (Steve Jobs).

People get hit by buses, they crash their cars and they have heart attacks. Don’t put off until tomorrow what can be done today, because for some people, tomorrow never comes.

6) Being busy doesn’t mean you are being productive.

Some people live to shout from the rooftops about how busy they are, but if you assess their actions closely you quickly realise that if they focussed on completing the task as much as they focussed on stressing out about how much they have to do, they wouldn’t be so busy in the first place.

Work smarter, not harder. List everything you have to do, putting urgent and important tasks at the top and get cracking. Turn off all social media notifications and anything else that might distract you and get it done. No excuses.

7) You do have the time, stop telling everyone that you don’t.

“I just haven’t got the time” is spoken so often that it has become a meaningless statement. How many hours a day do you spend on social media? Watching TV? Looking through pictures on your phone? Chatting to colleagues about their sisters, cousins, dog?

We fill our days with distractions, identify yours, limit your time on them and you’ll suddenly find there are more productive hours in the day than you originally thought.